wholly unconnected with any such conception, introduced into the Mass, to convey and enforce this opinion among the people, and thus the adoration of Christ as personally, bodily present on the altar became finally an essential part of Divine worship throughout all the churches of the West.

The establishment of this adoration as a form of worship dates only from the thirteenth century. And one of the most notable of the customs which then came in with it was that of elevating each of the elements immediately1 on the utterance of its "words of consecration," that it may be adored by the people, as also by the priest. A few years later it became common to sound a small bell, called the "sacring bell,” at the time of the elevation, to direct the attention of the people to the act of devotion which was then to be per

1 Bishop England (Roman Catholic Bishop of Charleston, U. S. A.), in his work on "The Nature and Ceremonies of the Mass," says, p. 113: "The custom of elevating the Host and chalice immediately after conse"cration was not introduced until after the heresy of Berengarius, who, "about the middle of the eleventh century, began to raise doubts of the "real presence. The custom of ringing the small bell was introduced soon after that of the first elevation." (Berengarius was really defending the old view against later corruptions.) "The Catholic Dictionary" says: "The elevation seems to have begun about 1100. The further 'custom of ringing a small bell at the elevation began in France "during the twelfth century, and was introduced into Germany in "1203 by Cardinal Gui, Legate of the Holy See.”

Hardwicke's "Church in the Middle Ages" states, p. 304, note 1: “The "first recorded instance of 'adoration' in Germany (i. e., of kneeling "down before the Host as an object of worship) is said to have occurred "in the thirteenth century" (circa 1215). This was also the year in which the doctrine of the presence of Christ's body and blood in the forms of bread and wine (or Transubstantiation) was first formulated at the Fourth Lateran Council.

formed. The usages and the theory grew side by side together, but both the doctrine and its accompanying ceremonial were' wholly due to the medieval perversions of the primitive and Catholic theology of the early liturgies, and they are equally at variance with these venerable Eucharistic offices and with the truths of Holy Scripture. Where the ancient truth of the Holy Communion is held there is no place for the mediæval doctrine of the Mass, nor for the ceremonial and forms by which this is illustrated and maintained.

4. As the whole person of Christ is contained, on this theory, "under the species of bread alone," it was obvious that He could also be worshiped in the consecrated bread alone without any need for the consecration of the wine, and He could be received entire by the taking of the bread only. Hence came at length the exclusion of the laity from partaking of the wine. This was reserved for the "celebrating priest " only, the other clergy present and the communing laity being given the bread alone. Various reasons have been assigned for this mutilation of Christ's Institution, but the ground of the great importance attached to it in

1 The mode in which the adoration and elevation are to be performed in the Roman Mass is, "Holding the Host (the bread) in both hands between his forefingers and thumbs, he utters the words of consecration, 'For-this-is-my-body,' secretly, distinctly, devoutly, atten. tively. Having finished the words, he immediately kneels and adores the consecrated Host. Then rising he elevates it on high, and shows it to the people to be adored, and again adores it himself."

The same also is done at the consecration of the wine. The elevation was not made a part of the Canon Law until 1217, under Pope Honorius III. See in Corpus Juris Decretal Greg., Lib. III, Title XLII, chap. 10.

the Roman doctrine is its theological significance, which, as stated by the Catechism of Trent, was to1 show "that the body is contained under the species of "bread without the blood, and the blood under the "species of wine without the body," hence that Christ himself could be worshiped and received in either.

2

Another inference equally logical and necessary from the principles of this system, was that the body of Christ is taken by the wicked when they eat the consecrated bread, as well as by those receiving by faith, and also if the consecrated host or a portion of the species of wine is swallowed by an animal or fall into an unclean place, Christ still remains present under the form of the element (though He contracts no impurity), and continues there so long as the species (or the form of the bread or wine) remains undestroyed or unchanged.

These are one and all legitimate deductions from the theory of this school, but they are utterly foreign to

1 The full statement of the Catechism (Buckley's Translation, chap. IV, Ques. LXIII, p. 249, is, after giving several reasons of propriety why the cup should be denied, "Finally, a circumstance of the utmost importance, means were to be taken to uproot the heresy of those who denied that Christ, whole and entire, is contained under the species of bread without the blood, and the blood under the species of wine without the body. In order, therefore, to place more clearly before the eyes of all the truth of the Catholic" (really Roman) "Faith, communion under one kind, that is, under the species of bread, was wisely introduced."

2 Aquinas "Summa," etc., Part III, Ques. LXXX, 3: "Etiamsi mus vel canis hostiam consecrantam manducet, substantia corporis Christi non desinet esse sub speciebus quamdiu species illae manent, sicut etiam si proficeretur in lutum."

the nature of the Eucharist as instituted by our Lord, delivered to St. Paul, and embodied in the liturgies of the Apostolic and its succeeding ages.

5. The primitive conception of the Eucharist, as derived from the words of Holy Scripture and the language of the early liturgies, had been that it was “for1 "the continual remembrance of the sacrifice of the "death of Christ, and of the benefits which we receive thereby," but with the substitution in the mediæval formulæ of the "priest" and his office, for the pressence and influence of the Holy Spirit came, as a natural development, the still further and, if possible, yet more fatal perversion that the Mass was an actual repetition on the altar, by the priest, of Christ's own sacrifice of Himself on the cross. In the Canon of Trent it is declared,2 "In this Divine sacrifice-in the Mass-the same Christ is contained and immolated in a bloodless manner, who once offered Himself in a bloody manner on the altar of the cross," hence "this. sacrifice is truly propitiatory." "For the victim is one and the same, the same now offering by the ministry of the priests, the manner alone of offering being different." In the Catechism it is expressed somewhat more fully: "The sacrifice of the Mass is one and the same sacrifice with that on the cross, for the victim is one and the same, namely, Christ our Lord, who offered Himself once only a bloody sacrifice on the altar of the cross the bloody and unbloody victim are not two but one victim only, whose sacrifice is daily

1 "The Church of England Catechism."

2 Canon of Trent, session XXII.

renewed in the Eucharist." "The priest also is one and the same Christ our Lord," for "acting in the person of Christ the Lord he changes the substance of the bread and wine into the substance of His body and blood." (Catechism, chap. 4, Ques. LXXIII, LXXIV.)

It is likewise declared that this propitiation applies the sacrifice of Christ not only to the living and those who are present, but also can avail for the relief of "the sins, punishments, satisfactions and other neces"sities of the faithful who are departed in Christ and "who are not as yet fully purged " (by their purgatorial sufferings); or in the slightly different language of the Catechism, "Such is the efficacy of this sacri"fice of the Mass that its benefits extend to those who "have died in the Lord whose sins have not yet been "fully expiated."

This fiction of the power of the Mass to release souls from their penal sufferings in the other world is the logical and practical culmination of the medieval perversion of the Scriptural doctrine of the Eucharist we have been considering. It has neither ground nor support in the Bible or the early liturgies, while it rests on principles and involves ideas wholly unknown to either. In it the character of a Sacrament has entirely disappeared, nor is there any longer the vestige of a spiritual use or significance attached to it, even as a sacrifice, and instead of being a means of the union of the faithful soul with Christ through the ministry of the Holy Ghost, it has been transformed into a purely mechanical agency by which the penalties due to God from the yet "unpurged" departed may be paid off and satisfied. And in view of both its theological errors and its practical evils our 31st Article is fully